Damned
by Here Strikes Dawn
Summary: Not what he had expected. Human transmutation with a twist, quite literally. Dark
1. Damned

A/N: Dark themes mentioned, read with caution.

* * *

Damned

Blood blood blood so much blood. A perfectly drawn alchemic circle, every inch of chalk painstakingly carved onto the cold basement floor. The runes from the circle were crackling, alchemic sparks rippling blue through the air, heavy with blood and pain and despair.

His mind was sick. He wanted to be sick. He wanted to turn over and retch and take away the awful churning feeling in his stomach. They had done something so terribly bad to Mama…he didn't want to look or see, but he knew everything went wrong. More blood blood blood.

Something had gone terribly wrong. His memory was faint, static, a jumble. Pictures and scenes of blood and alchemy tingled through his mind, but he couldn't understand. He was disorientated and overwhelmed by the coursing river of blood blood blood.

His mind was coursing, ripples of intangible waves of agony massing around him like a black tide of guilt. He felt detached, isolated and so terribly cold and alone. Shattered like the broken glass lying around him. Glass and chalk and blood and death death death.

He groaned, his mind pulsing and he felt that it was going to explode from the pressure. He tried to, but he couldn't move. He was chained to the earth, grounded, afraid. He had lost control. Anxiety coursed through him. He choked as he imagined the hot scent of blood blood blood.

He could see it in the corners of his vision. Dark ruby red splotches spattered an arm's reach away. Mama…But he wasn't alone, was he? There was Brother too. And so much blood…no no no!

He forced his arm to rise, his left, and his right. And then his torso…Strange. Everything was heavier than he thought it should be. He could see the blood, hear the blood-curdling melody of alchemy's magic, but he couldn't feel the frozen slab of floor beneath him. He couldn't feel the itchiness from his laundered shirt. He couldn't feel the pinch of where his shoes dug in at the toes. He couldn't smell the reek of death stifling in the air. He couldn't taste the blood on his lips.

He couldn't feel anything at all. Hollow hollow hollow.

And then he heard it. The distinct clang of metal grinding against dirt, screeching against more metal. A discordant cacophony. He wanted to clasp his hands over his ears. That noise was close to him. He looked down towards his legs, clad in armour. He didn't _have_ any legs. He was the armour. He was layers of iron sheets folded over each other. Iron and carbon and oxygen.

 _The ingredients of a living human being could be bought on a child's allowance._

Gauntlets…his hands…rose and clasped at his helmet…his head…that shook vehemently. He was nothing. A ripped, tormented soul. No no no…

He couldn't break down…not yet…even if the viscous flow of blood made him feel nauseous. He wanted to drag his battered body away and wash it away in the rain. Where was Brother?

Moving without feeling, his will stretching to the metal he was able to control, treading lightly like a phantom, he exerted his force into standing up. His soul inwardly gripped at the metal, bending it, stretching, rising. Just like that, as if he had been born doing it. He felt that he yielded the power to possess the metal. A fairytale. But anything would help…distract him…from the blood blood blood sealing them in their despair.

And what if he was a ghost already?

Brother. He controlled the steel, taking a step forward, walking, and running across the room, screaming. His voice was discordant, harsh, lost like a memory. Smoke and dust danced through the air. Someone was coughing, choking. He tried to breathe, but found that pathway blocked, as if someone had plugged his lungs to an eternal source of oxygen. He didn't ever need to breathe again.

He was panicking, afraid, hyperventilating inside. What if Brother but Brother was coughing that must mean he was alive what if he was too late what if the same thing had happened to Brother as what had happened to him? Breathe breathe breathe.

A shout, a plea, a cry. That was Brother. He moved instinctively. Ripped clothes. Savaged limbs. Slumping heavily. Delirious. He was drenched in blood blood blood. Brother looked like a ghost outside, while he resembled one inside.

A hand, left hand. The other was missing, ripped away like his body. It was pointing towards something.

A sickening desire to turn around followed. He shouldn't have looked. He didn't want to look. But his helmet creaked as he exerted his will to turn it around. Slowly, slowly slowly, moving to gaze at the centre of the circle. The centre of his nightmares, the place where he swam in a river of hot blood blood blood.

A corpse. Open, dead eyes. Husks. Misplaced bones and organs, heaped together like in a sack. It was horrendous, an abomination, a sin. It was his fault.

Armour was clanking. He was petrified. He thought he was going to have a heart attack. But that couldn't happen. He whimpered, begging for the warmth and gentle touch of Brother's hand. That had been ripped away too as had Mama there was nothing left of them.

He had been reduced to ash.

* * *

 _The twist comes next time._


	2. Surrogate

Surrogate

Dark and gloom. This is what his world had become. So very dark dark dark...

He shuddered, feeling cold air hit his bleeding stumps where his right arm and left leg should have been. Edward Elric couldn't comprehend much of what was going on at that moment; instead of being a whirlwind of emotion, Ed oddly felt a lack of emotion take its place.

A numbness like the monotonous beat of a drum, or his own struggling heart.

He had lost blood, pooling around him like the crimson river that it was. So much blood blood blood and yet he could feel nothing. He felt pain, but it was a faint ebbing at the back of his mind that his consciousness could easily brush away. Ed wasn't a part of this world he thought, more oddly detached from reality as though he was falling into a void. The capacity to feel emotion was being drained from him as if a leech was sucking the marrow out of his soul, taking with it his ability to feel warmth and light and pain pain pain. He could hear the cries of his little brother mourning the lost of their dead mother, the loss of their bodies and yet he could feel nothing.

"Brother, we need to get you to a doctor. But why? Why?!" The younger Elric cried through the basement, the ring of metal sending shivers down Edward's spine. The sound was too foreign to be human.

... What had he just thought? Of course Al was human he was his baby brother and Ed would do anything in the world to protect him... He sighed - the emotional thing was confusing and felt alien to him...so he settled for a comfortable numbness instead.

"I don't know, Al," he said simply. He blinked his tired eyes, staring at the chalky mess that he was sitting in when a cold breeze settled over him. It seemed that heaven was hissing at him since he no longer had a place by the side of the angels since committing the ultimate taboo Human Transmutation.

The title itself had once carried a foreboding weight to it, as though the sinful act had its own presence. Thinking about bringing their mother back had been enough to overcome the fear of attempting something forbidden (due to a stubbornness that both of the Elric brothers shared). Now...it didn't make any difference to him; they were just words.

Words couldn't hurt. Nothing much hurt inside anymore.

"Your theorems were flawless though, Ed! And what happened to you? Your arm? Your leg? My body? Why did it all go wrong?" Alphonse cried tearfully, although from the armour no tears would fall. That armoured body was merely a vessel to allow Al's soul to survive in this world. It didn't have the capacity to shed tears as a regular human body would. That was when Edward noticed something damp upon his face, as if he had been crying not too long ago. Why had he been crying? There was no reason for him to cry. What had happened had happened and there was no changing fate...

"There must have been a flaw somewhere to have caused this rebound, Alphonse," Edward replied, taking in the room around him. The air was heavy with blood, silencing the cries of the children that had pierced through the basement walls but minutes before. Everything had changed but to Edward, he had already accepted the loss. It was as though someone had died and he had gone through both the grieving and acceptance processes in a matter of minutes.

"I don't understand, Brother! We need to get you to Winry's as quickly as possible!" Al sounded frantic and tried to move forwards slowly, reaching down to stoop beside his brother. His armoured knee hit the ground with a cling sending a ringing into Edward's ears. Alphonse was having some difficulty adapting to his new body. It wasn't to be surprised.

"Why...did you give up so much of yourself up for me?" Al stuttered, his sonorous voice high-pitched as though he was choking on his grief.

"Just an arm, Al," Ed feigned a smile, and winced in real pain as he felt a sharp stabbing sensation pulling at the side of his abdomen. He struggled to lift his drenched shirt to locate the source of his sudden pain. Pain that was worse than the agony of having two limbs ripped apart from his body. Al hadnt noticed; Ed's younger brother had started sobbing.

"B-brother..." Al managed to whisper with his wispy metallic voice. The boy raised a gauntlet to rub his eyes before pausing halfway through the motion, realizing it was a human need he didn't have to fulfil anymore.

"Side...hurts," Ed managed to gasp. The pain in his side had manifested from a slight twinge to severe stabbing pain. Al gently helped his brother lift up his shirt, and would have thrown up if the circumstances had been different.

Coming out of Edward's side was a malignant lump, pinched and twisted like a fruit left to ripen for too long. The skin was blotchy and already a maroon purple in colour. The wound was smooth in texture, with rich blue veins twining around like ivy. Edward winced and the lump, the size of a peach, wriggled and started to grow before his eyes.

XxxxxxxxX

 _Long time no see! I had some free time this hour, so thought I would begin updating stuff XD_

 _I hope the wait was worth it - there will be more soon :)_


	3. Sorcery

Sorcery

There was a storm brewing in the sky. Thunder bellowed and lightning crashed, the rain whipping up a frenzy as roots were ripped from the ground. She sat by the window with her cup of hot cocoa, watching the elements breaking each other and the world apart. Her grandmother called for her to come and sit by the roaring fire with her, but like how the wild called to the wolf, she felt a stirring in her heart to leave this place.

There was trouble brewing in the air. Evil. Pure evil. She could feel it. She had been witness to it standing weeping at her parents' graves with no bodies to bury, nothing to mourn over. All that had come back from Ishval had been a tattered photograph and a little girl with a broken heart.

Winry Rockbell had known intuitively that something was going far before the storm had begun. The phone lines had been broken early on during the storm's symphony, and the roads were flooded. Unless one wanted to take the treacherous country road lathered with mud, there would be no method of reaching the village square of Resembool. There would be nowhere to go and ask for help...

They were trapped in their homes all cosy and wrapped up warm until the night was over. However, that was the last thought on the young girl's mind. Granny usually called to the Elric household to see how the brothers were doing and if they wanted any food. To the boys, food and books and alchemy were the derivatives for a successful life. They never declined and even though they rarely answered their phone while they were locked up in the basement doing their bizarre magic tricks with alchemy, they would always ring back. Later. Eventually. But now the phone lines were broken there was nothing Winry could do. She hoped Ed and Al were okay.

But a part of her knew they were not.

They had been...off earlier that day. Al had been outlandish and secretive like his big brother. Edward was bad enough for keeping his secrets locked close to his heart while Al was the one to translate his brother's antics. Both had been muttering close to each other as the three of them had sat watching the clouds gather on the grassy hilltops facing towards the mountains. Winry, usually one of the few people to get to the hearts of the Elric brothers (a skill she was particularly proud of) had not managed to successfully squeeze a word out of the pair today. That had been at lunchtime.

She had not seen them since.

They had been behaving strangely for longer than that; she realized. The boys talked about mystical things like artificial humans and stones that could turn lead into gold. It shook Winry to her core. Ed and Al likely thought that she didn't hear them, but she always did. She cared about them. And it was her duty as the oldest to watch out for her little brothers.

Winry jumped as she was shook from her thoughts as lightning pelted down from the heavens, the rain like bullets. The roof of the house acted as a shield but she was ever so worried that it could break.

She was twiddling her fingers and pacing anxiously along the corridor as the storm intensified. She couldn't stay here.

"Granny, I'm going out," she said, her mind planning what she was going to do. She was going to drag the Elric brothers from their cave in the basement and bring them over to hers to have a hot cocoa by the fire.

Determined, she strode towards the front door, grabbed Granny's rain coat which was far too big for her before opening the front door. Underestimating the strength of the wind, Winry was thrown backwards and her back slammed into the wall. She cried out in pain and shock, but gritted her teeth and struggled to rise to her feet.

"Where do you think you are going?" a miniature figure with a pipe stood at the doorway, leaning back and breathing out vapours of smoke.

"Out," the blonde girl replied stubbornly, hands on hips and back straightened, and her eyes narrowed.

"Are you stupid, you damn brat?" the piercing gaze of Granny wouldn't scare her this time.

"No! I'm going to fetch them," Winry said, knowing her vague answer would be enough for Granny to understand.

"...Be careful then. Come home safely," she muttered, before retreating back to where Den was likely hogging the seat closest to the burning embers.

"Are you not going to argue wit-"

"The lot of you youngsters are too stubborn these days. You wouldn't listen. No respect for your elders..." Granny mumbled, before raising her voice at a flabbergasted Winry staring at her grandmother, "now go!"

"Yes, Granny!" she squeaked, and was out of the house only seconds when the door slammed shut.

She stumbled. She could hardly breathe. The storm was ferocious like a mountain cat pouncing on its prey. Deadly. The rain smashed against her face like ice, and the October night was cold and bitter. Steps from the house and she was disorientated. Which direction led where...the world was spinning...

When suddenly in front of her eyes there was a bright flash, brighter than the lightning. It was over the hill. Up the winding road to Ed and Al's house...

She started running, slipping over the mud. She fell face first multiple times; when she woke up tomorrow, her arms would be decorated with bruises. But she had to keep going...they needed her...

She grabbed hold of the side gate near the bottom of the hill when she heard a piercing scream. Ed. It was heartbreaking, a melancholic wail of emotion that was rare for Ed to show. Something had happened...something terrible...

But just as she was about to carry on, she heard a resonating laugh coming from behind her. Turning around, and gasping in shock, she saw a devilish creature with spiky hair and lilac eyes staring back at her. The strange man wore black clothes, and his grin was sadistic.

"I was thinking tonight would be getting boring, so thanks for showing up, girlie! Father didn't want anyone near the house so I was sent to guard..." the creature mumbled under its breath, "he's making me a new sibling tonight, so I guess I _should_ be on my good behaviour..."

"Get away from me!" Winry wailed, pushing her way back through the dirt. The monster laughed.

"Are you jealous I can go up to the house and you cannot? Sorry there, girlie, but _I_ am the only jealous one here," the humanoid creature shifted a little to the side, and Winry saw a huge spiral-shaped tattoo on their thigh, "nice to meet ya, the name's Envy."

XxxxxxxxX

 _We have plot! This story is going to be a shorter one, so things will be progressing quickly._

 _And yes, I have changed details from the canon plot, but these shall make sense as the mystery unfolds :)_

 _Hope you enjoyed!_


	4. Starve

Starve

"Al...what is that?" Ed shivered and gasped, waves of shock emanating from his body as the lump quivered again, a tar-like ooze dripping from its surface. It pattered onto the blood-strewn ground but that was the last thing that Alphonse noticed at that moment.

"I don't know, brother...I don't know..." Al repeatedly muttered under his breath, "what happened?"

"That sick and twisted bastsrd happened, that's what, Al," Ed snapped spitfully and Al thought for a moment that his crippled brother could be alright. However, the honey-golden eyes were glazed over and his left hand was shaking next to the lump on his abdomen, as if trying to stop the pain in any way possible. A pain that was worse than the bleeding and pulsing stumps of his left leg and right arm. Al reached for the armoured cloth and attempted to wrap it around Ed's arm, the one that was bleeding the most profusely. The older Elric brother sucked in a sharp breath, and Al thought he was wincing in pain from where he had applied the pressure to stauch the wound.

But that wasn't why Ed was trying his best not to scream as he wanted to rip his insides apart to break this thing apart from him and-

Before their eyes, the lump wriggled again. One particularly bright and purple vein was bulging and swelling, slivering along the surface of his skin, causing Ed to finally cry out. He shouldn't have cried out. He had known that if he had cried out he would have vomited and that he did. The pain was too much and sickening to see this monstrous and vile abomination - a sin - take root from his own body, parasitic scum.

The vein broke forth from the skin, a spray of clotted blood spraying Alphonse's chest plate. The detached vein drooped for a second like a wilted flower; and then the vein elongated as it was warped into something it wasn't. At the end that had detached several smaller veins poked forth, swirling like a vortex of chaos to form strange and evil contorted shapes. It grew thicker and larger, thicker and longer. And then it paused.

It wasn't a vein.

Edward had realised this too and choked his stomach's contents onto the dank floor below. Evil reeked in this place like a sickness without a cure, a plant looked in the dark that would die without the light from the Sun. Alphonse couldn't smell but he didn't need to to know.

Their human transmutation had not only rebounded onto them, but through them their dead mother.

The vein wasn't a vein because it rippled with muscle and possessed digits. It was a limb.

The limb then proceeded to bend and flex as if experimentally but then curled each finger and thumb respectively, and the slow unfurl portrayed smug satisfaction. This was a vessel and body the creature could work with.

Edward's face was horribly pale when it had been flush moments before and Al quickly realized that Ed was likely becoming very anaemic because his blood supply was being sapped away by this monstrosity.

"Please, Al," Ed whimpered, and he pointed weakly upwards in the direction of freedom, away from their personalised Hell the basement had become.

Take me out of here. Away.

But Ed didn't have chance to finish as he shivered and passed out lightly, yet Al caught him with a sharp clank as he moved the armour - his armour - to catch his brother. The malignancy was still growing, a distended set of ribs and thorax beginning to emerge from his weakened form. Al had to get his brother to a hospital but the nearest one was in the city too far away to go without transport; the doctor's surgery would be closed at this hour on an October night. Once they saw Ed, there would be no way they could justify what they had done. While Al assumed that as long as nobody saw his hollow body, the world would think him peculiar as opposed to an alchemically-created living suit of armour (that didn't matter because Brother had saved his life). When they looked at Ed though, he would be locked behind bars and prodded and probed by scientists; Al couldn't stand for that to happen.

He gently cradled his unconscious brother up and fled from the place that would haunt his every sleepless night to come. The room was a hush except for the faint dripping as the thing that was their mother slowly decomposed, dead shortly after it had arrived in this world. Like the night, the basement was dark.

Ed needed blood. A blood transfusion. Quickly. And he needed a refuge where the people wouldn't turn him away. There was one place he could go: the Rockbell's.

They had pints of blood stored for patients who had lost their supply during automail rehabilitation and surgery. Since Mama had passed away, Granny had been like a second mother and Winry like a sister. While he had done something very wrong, surely they would understand?

Could they still love two boys who weren't fully human anymore?

XxxxxxxxX

 _Chapter 4 - short and sweet. Actually...short and horrible. Poor Ed ;--;_

 _When I initially got the idea for this chapter, I did turn very very pale! Anyway, I hope you enjoy._


	5. Savage

Savage

They couldn't stay at the house for another minute.

It reeked of death (they had killed their mother _again_ ) and Al was terrified of this place. As a child, he had shared many wonderful memories here with his brother and mother (he didn't remember his father enough for that; Ed hated him). But this place was filled with taboo and he was the product of said monstrosity.

All of this was his fault. He had not tried to stop the human transmutation. He trusted his intuition, and he had rejected that feeling with the absolute certainty that he would see his Mum again…

Naïve foolish boy…

The thoughts echoed like the creaking of the armour. This strange armour, like an alien, was now _him._ And he couldn't escape. He could run away from the family home, although this hollow body was a reminder. It would be for a long time.

This plethora of thoughts plagued him for less than a second. He could feel guilty at another time. Right now, Brother…

"I'm going to w-wrap up the wounds, Brother," Al stuttered and he reached over for the pile of ripped fabric which he had been wearing minutes hours days ago. Quickly he tied a knot around the two stumps. The fabric was quickly staining red.

"Al…" Ed slurred, attempting to raise his remaining hand towards the sky, as if trying to reach for Heaven. The hand flopped to the ground suddenly. However, the muscles in his arm were still contracting. Ed was reaching towards the corpse that had been their abominable attempt to resurrect her.

However, the blood loss would not be contained forever. Brother needed blood transfusions.

He bundled Ed up in the remaining clothes. Ed had lost his battle with the will to stay awake and his head lolled past his left shoulder. His bloodied bangs covered his tired eyes. Al couldn't feel and he didn't know if he was exerting too much pressure. However, Ed did not stir. So the younger brother cradled the blond in his gauntlets and shakily stood, armour clanking unhappily.

The younger sibling shuddered, but did not look back.

The closest hospital was in the city; the nearest doctor's surgery was in the heart of the village and would have long shut its doors this late in the evening. There was only one place-

Winry.

* * *

"Who are you?" Winry exclaimed, her hands placed firmly on her hips, but they were shivering. She didn't know if it was more from the fear thrumming through her body or the pouring rain piercing her face.

The strange person cocked their head in her direction. They wore next to no clothing and appeared to not be cold. A strange presence radiated from their person. The figure didn't seem to notice the effect they were having on her.

"I said it already, brat! The name's Envy, and ya better not forget me," Envy flicked their hair seemingly proud about their proclamation.

Winry didn't know what was going on. She had spent most of her life secluded in Resembool and in fact, while she prided herself on her knowledge of medicine and mechanics, she knew little about much else. She was in a way jealous of Ed and Al, and how they were accomplished alchemists and had travelled the world. Seeing things and being a part of something bigger than what she could comprehend.

She had never met somebody like this Envy before. Were they a friend to the Elric brothers? She didn't know. And that made her feel helpless. She held onto her coat tightly, willing for the chill to leave her alone.

"I don't know who you are or what you want. How can I trust you?" Winry whispered. She was becoming anxious, a hand now threading through her hair. And then her hand was in her pocket fumbling with some random parts for automail she had stashed there.

"You don't! And you won't ever know! Ya see, I wasn't exactly meant to reveal myself to anyone, let alone my identity. Damn, Father _won't_ be pleased. Not that he will ever know!" Envy snapped their fingers, "I'll just kill ya now. Make things easier."

Winry squeaked and instinctively began to back away. The aura she had sensed coming from that…thing… was justified. She watched in horror as its skin glowed red and where a hand was a moment before, there was a blade.

"I won't let you!" she shrieked and automatically threw a wrench that was resting in the sleeve of her jacket. The makeshift weapon caused the creature's eyes to widen in concern.

Too late. The wrench smacked Envy straight in the face.

Winry was panting heavily and she could feel tears trickling down her face. "I…" she fell to her knees. "Granny, Ed, Al. Mum. Dad. Help."

She was pleading with ghosts and those who couldn't hear her. Her cries would go unanswered…

"You're going to pay for that, you damn girly pipsqueak!" Envy's eyes, a violet in colour, became as narrow as slits. She could see their ugly expression contort in the brief blinks of lightning that shimmered through the October storm.

"Wait, Envy."

A voice echoed through the thunder. Behind Envy there was a figure approaching…Winry could not distinguish their features. They were too far away. However, their voice was like velvet.

"Who knew that a routine mission could become so…interesting? You saw that light come from the house. That was undoubtedly alchemy."

* * *

 _Hope you enjoy! Next update will be out soon :)_


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